Recycling's Many Faces Show at NRC

The 17th Annual Congress & Exposition of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) in Albuquerque, N.M. attracted some 2,000 attendees who expressed pride in the growth of their industry—but also a realization that markets are down and citizen-driven enthusiasm toward recycling may have ebbed.

The mid-September convention provided a trade show with more than 120 exhibitors, a wide variety of educational sessions, considerable socializing and networking opportunities, and a small dose of environmental activism.

The NRC conducted some organizational business, including approving a report from the NRC policy work group urging the NRC’s staff to lobby against governmental subsidies for the mining of virgin materials. The group also amended its mission statement, according to NRC Policy & Programs Director Edgar Miller, "to elevate issues like source reduction and composting."

Although materials recycling will remain a key focus of NRC, Miller says the group’s board wants to open the doors to new members in remanu-facturing and other segments. The NRC also wants to examine recycling in the context of wider issues such as preserving resources, protecting the environment, global climate change, and sustainable development. "Recycling is more than just a solid waste management issue," says Miller.

The ambitious plans of the board come at the same time that commodity prices are depressed to a point where recycling profit margins have, in many cases, been squeezed out of existence. "I think certainly with the markets having been down, there is a certain amount of pessimism," says Miller. "Many states and communities are trying to increase their waste diversion rates but have concerns about how they’re going to do that in down markets."

One bright spot was an announcement from the federal government designed to coincide with the NRC event. The sale of recycled-content office paper should receive a boost with the signing of Executive Order 13101. The executive order, signed by President Clinton the morning of the NRC show’s first full day, mandates all federal government agencies and bureaus to purchase office paper containing at least 30% recycled fibers. "As the nation’s largest paper purchaser, the federal government has a special responsibility to lead the way in building markets for recycled goods," Clinton said in a statement announcing the signing of the order.

Fran McPoland, the Federal Environmental Executive who was in attendance at the NRC show, says the new order "was one-and-a-half years in the making. It was a very long process." McPoland adds that Order 13101 "effectively replaces Executive Order 12873," which she says "had no teeth." The new order makes investigating an agency’s recycled-content paper purchasing part of a standard EPA audit of federal agencies, bureaus, departments and buildings. "Federal facilities will now be held accountable," McPoland states.

For the air traveler, Albuquerque is not a destination to which there are a lot of direct flights. But despite some pre-show concerns that the somewhat out-of-the-way city would result in a sparsely populated trade show floor, traffic during exhibit hours was deemed good by most exhibitors.

A format that restricts trade show floor hours primarily to times when there are not any educational sessions taking place means exhibitors can usually expect a decent flow of traffic during show hours. Exhibitors say this method is indeed successful at keeping the floor busy, but expressed mixed views as to the quality of this year’s floor traffic.

Ken Clinton invented and markets the Break Time! baler, a non-automated device that crushes small numbers of corrugated boxes to prepare them for hydraulic balers or dumpsters. "I’d have to say I was pleased with the caliber of the people that appeared—a lot of government, military, and municipal people," says Clinton, whose company is based in Nokomis, Fla. He adds, though, that he was disappointed there was not a greater showing of attendees from California, a state he hoped to reach in his marketing efforts.

Government employees did indeed make up a large percentage of attendees. According to the NRC’s Miller, 25% of attendees of the 1997 convention in Orlando were federal government employees. "This year, that figure was 25% or more," he notes. "With the new executive order, there seems to be a re-energized federal effort."

Avangard Industries Inc., Houston, chose the 1998 show in Albuquerque as the first NRC show at which it has exhibited. The company is a large processor of scrap plastic, and procures much of its material from Mexico. "I expected something a little bit different," says Arturo Creixell, an Avan-gard sales representative. "Overall, I think it was okay because we got to see some of our current customers," he adds, "but I think, in general, the industry and markets are so bad that a lot of people just stayed home."

Paper, Plastic and Beyond

Municipal recycling program design and operation was the focus of the majority of educational sessions and panel discussions presented as part of the NRC’s annual convention programming. Sessions offered case studies of successful programs as well as overall looks at the pricing prospects for recycled commodities.

Several panel members on a session on the future of paper recycling agreed that, while the market is not at a peak, there is still adequate demand for scrap paper. Patricia A. Layton of the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), Washington, called the North American paper-making "a very integrated industry" in terms of its ability to consume both pulp made from wood and from scrap paper.

During the last ten years, according to Layton, 20 million tons of paper-making capacity has been added in the U.S., and 69% of it has been geared to use secondary fiber pulp, compared to just 30% for wood pulp.

"That makes almost $10 billion in the 1990s that our industry has invested in the recovered fiber infrastructure," she declared. "Favorable economics played the most dominant role in this growth. It is good business for my industry to recycle paper."

The AF&PA has set an industry goal "to recover about 50% of the paper we produce," says Layton. The current recovery rate of 45.2% is approaching that figure.

Among the recovery rates that can be improved is that of scrap paper produced by small businesses. Jana H. Schimpff of the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, Fla. presented an outline of a program enacted in her county to recover paper produced by small businesses in downtown retail and commercial districts. Collection bin sites in the commercial districts combined with an informational program for business owners has provided a boost to recycling rates for paper grades.

Presentations on such programs can be helpful to attendees of the convention, the NRC’s Miller says. "We’re trying to highlight the success of those programs that are doing well, and we’re trying to share that information. I got a lot of positive feedback on the sessions."

A session on plastics recycling included remarks from Peter Anderson of Recycle Worlds Consulting Corp., Madison, Wisc. Anderson cited what he called a "hurdle price" (in today’s market) of 23 cents per pound for recycled plastic to cover collection, sorting, baling and freight costs to ship it to an end user or pellet maker. With market prices so far below that, Anderson expressed concern that "the fad has passed . . . we can no longer rely totally on public support" to carry the plastic recycling market.

"I don’t think we want to say that recycling has to pay for itself, but it has to have some economic rationale. Otherwise, its long-term sustainability will be compromised," warns Anderson.

"We have a situation where plastic recyclers can’t pay their bills a significant amount of the time," he continues. "How can we have the ability to sustain an infrastructure in a situation like that? We’re not going to sustain plastic recycling because of public enthusiasm alone."

Noting that polls have shown that recycling is no longer one of the top five or even top ten environmental issues of concern to the American public, Anderson says that many industry and government officials may have the wrong idea about why that is. It is not, he says, because they don’t feel it is important, but because there is increasingly a "well, that problem is solved" attitude among the public.

He fears, though, that the public may not be reawakened to the difficulties that plastic recycling has encountered unless a day comes when their collection trucks no longer accept plastic. "At that point, it is probably a little too late," says Anderson.

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Advocacy and activism may not have been lead players at the NRC’s 17th Annual Congress, but they did make appearances.

More than 20 recycling groups from throughout the U.S. used the NRC convention in Albuquerque to launch a campaign to urge Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, to use recycled content in the making of its plastic bottles. Campaign organizers want consumers to mail back empty plastic soda bottles to Coca-Cola Co. chairman Douglas Ivester with the message: "Coca-Cola Live Up to Your Promise: Take It Back and Use It Again."

Says Rick Best of the GrassRoots Recycling Network, "Coca-Cola sells more than 20 million sodas in the United States every day in plastic bottles without using even one ounce of recycled plastic." The Athens, Georgia-based organization is one of several that helped stage a news conference at NRC to announce the campaign. After the news conference, seven large boxes of empty bottles were sent to chairman Ivester’s attention.

According to the campaign’s organizers, Coca-Cola promised in 1990 to make new plastic soft drink bottles sold in the U.S. with 25% recycled material. But in 1994, the company discontinued its involvement with plastic recycling in the U.S. and now uses no bottles in the made U.S. that are made with recycled plastic.

Other groups taking part in the campaign include the Container Recycling Institute, the California Resource Recovery Association, and Georgians for a Bottle Bill.

It may not be prudent to admit it to co-workers who were left behind, but one of the NRC convention events that brings attendees back each year is the Steel Recycling Institute’s Welcoming Reception.

In past years, the reception has been held at such sites as MGM Studios in Orlando; along the banks of the Monangahela River in Pittsburgh (within site of Three Rivers Stadium during a Steelers vs. Bills game); at a restored railroad station with a casino in Portland, Ore.; at an aquarium in Boston; and at the Kansas City Zoo.

This year, the Steel Recycling Institute shuttled attendees to the Los Amigos Ranch outside of Albuquerque. Some 2,000 Steel Fiesta Grande attendees enjoyed southwestern chili, beer, and entertainment ranging from Native American dancers to country and western bands.

The author is managing editor of Recycling Today.